Northern Pass has invited residents and landowners in Concord and Canterbury to our next open house in Concord this evening at the Holiday Inn on North Main Street in Concord. Visitors can stop by anytime between 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. to discuss the project with engineers and experts from our team.

Our open houses are informal gatherings where people can view informational materials and speak to representatives at their own pace. There are different booths set up around the room that provide information about jobs and tax benefits, information structure heights and locations, the construction process and even visual simulations of what the project would look like from various vantage points. Open Houses are a voluntary effort on the part of the project to share information with local residents and landowners, and we’ve enjoyed the events we’ve held thus far.

The proposed route of the project runs through the western side of Canterbury for roughly 6 miles along an existing right-of-way before it crosses the town line. In Concord, the proposed route will travel along an 8 mile stretch of an existing right-of-way, also currently home to existing power lines

As part of our efforts to address concerns over potential visual impact, our engineering team redesigned a 17-mile stretch of the proposed route between Franklin and Concord, which resulted in reduced structure heights. We first announced this redesign in June as part of our route announcement and are looking forward to sharing the details of these changes with residents this evening. This redesign reduces the most common structure heights along this section to 80 feet and means 92 percent of structures will be 100 feet or less, where previously only 51 percent of structures were 100 feet or less.

Communities will also see a financial benefit from Northern Pass as the infrastructure improvements the project makes within each community will translate into more tax revenue for those towns. In Concord, the project is estimated to create more than $540,000* in municipal and local education tax payments and in Canterbury, the project is estimated to create more than $400,000*. Overall, Northern Pass is expected to bring an estimated total of $28 million in new local, county and state taxes annually.

Whether you are looking to learn about the project’s proposed design in your community, sign up for our jobs notification list, or want to know more about Northern Pass’ clean, renewable energy, please feel free to stop by the Canterbury and Concord open house this evening or upcoming events as we continue to talk to residents throughout the state about New Hampshire’s energy future.

Back in May, we posted a visual simulation booklet of what The Northern Pass transmission line will look like from actual locations along the preliminary preferred route (based on preliminary engineering). These visual simulations were produced by LandWorks, a landscape architecture and planning firm out of Middlebury, VT, using sophisticated and industry-accepted software and software methodologies.

To make the simulations easier to find, we’ve stripped them out of the booklet into individual PDFs which are now posted on each of the relevant towns’ community pages. Here are direct links to the PDFs:

A news article today in the Concord Monitor reports on a recent “determination of no hazard” by the Federal Aviation Administration, regarding an existing PSNH transmission line in the right of way adjacent to the Concord Airport.

This is an important step in our ability to utilize this existing right of way for the project.

Northern Pass engineers will use this information as they design structures for the project along the existing right of way in the area of the airport.

Over the next few months, the engineers will finalize a design for re-submittal to the FAA. The FAA will then perform another Obstruction Review and provide a determination.